Don't trust the casting bar to tell you how fast you are actually casting. It isn't very accurate. The wiki should be able to tell you how much Fast Cast is on each item, but if you have some need to test it yourself check the recast of your spells. Fast Cast influences the recast of your spells by 50% how much much Fast Cast you are getting.

#3Jayjs,
Posted:Oct 11 2010 at 12:47 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) While I appreciate the effort...considering how incredibly precise my tests were, and how incredibly ambiguous the wiki is, not to mention the cure casting time test, I have to lean more towards my own test when put up against the sourceless wiki. Also, the recast of the spell is completely outside the scope of this topic so I'm not sure why you brought it up.

While I appreciate the effort...considering how incredibly precise my tests were...

Spamming the Screenshot button is not "incredibly precise." There was some Bard on the Rdm forums some time ago who thoroughly tested Fast Cast by using Fraps. Pretty much the conclusion was for spells with a long casting time (aka raise) the bar can be somewhat accurate but don't count on it for spells that fire off quickly.

On the thief boards...not likely. I'd check the Brd, Rdm, Whm, or Sch boards since those are the jobs that love to reduce their casting times the most. I mean it's not like Fast Cast works any different on Thf then any other job (except maybe Sam :P)

The problem with that is that fast cast for THF differs in the way that we have greater limit of how much fast cast we can obtain. While mage jobs have traits and JAs that alter recasting time, the only fast cast THF has is from gear(or subbing /rdm, but we won't go there).

...only Rdm has Fast Cast natively meaning every other job just like thf either gets their Fast Cast from Gear, /Rdm, or abilities (aka, Light/Dark Arts).

If you really want to do a decent test, download Fraps and set it to record each frame. Then count how many frames it took from the start of the spell to when the icon appears on top of your screen.

#13Jayjs,
Posted:Oct 11 2010 at 7:45 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) Maybe this was a bit much to ask, forget I said anything. I'll be sure to keep my findings to myself when I obtain the other pieces of FC gear.

I can tell you from years of watching the utsu bar on both PS2 and PC, the recast bar on PC is absolute ****. If ANYTHING is going on in the slightest that will slow the game down in any way, the actual animations slow down. (not the actual moment things happen in game, just the visual animations). If PS2 is overloaded, it will just skip frames and end up choppy, but visually, the actions will start and end at the same time (melee attacks, WS, crafting everything applies to this). PC will fit all the frames in, just do it slower. This ***** up the recast bar on PC because it is tied to the animation, not to the spell itself. THIS is why anything to do with the cast bar will fail as a scientific test. This is why you got different numbers doing the same thing. It, bluntly, is anything but scientific. This is why the sound often will not line up with synthing or longer WS animations. If you play on a PS2 and then go back to PC it is MONSTEROUSLY noticable for crafting and long WS in particular because they have specific timed sounds to go with the long animations. It is less pronounced but definately there for spells as well. Ever cast a spell during a lag spike and the actual spell finishes at like 50% but you keep casting? Thats the stupid PC client.

However, the animation is just the visual representation client side of whats goin on. You are not actually hitting slower or casting slower. That stuff is all server side so the ICONS that appear are actually pretty timely and that is why all fastcast tests ever done are done using fraps and measuring the frames from the start of the cast until an icon appears (and do it in a place like MH where there is virtualy no lag). Remove as many variables and client side junk as possible and you get the most accurate tests. For measuring recast, the recast timer still works so test like hasso+long spell like raise to extend recast timers as much as possible so thta you can easily see small changes in fastcast.

Just because people arent exactly being 'nice' to you doesnt mean they are wrong.

I am not even being confrontational, but thanks for that. Just stating the facts of how this game works. If you want to ignore perfectly sound information from me and other posters because you dont "like" us then that is your loss im afraid. Liking, disliking or presentation style (nice or otherwise) has no bearing on the validity of the information presented.

It has been explained why the method you chose to measure fast cast is simply not very accurate. If you want to ignore that perfectly good information because it wasnt said very nicely in some posts and beat your head against a brick wall testing something in an inaccurate way, be my guest. But dont expect your 'findings' to hold much water when there are superior testing methods already available and well known. Thats really all that is going on here.